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Barrow Blotter

THEFT: The loss prevention officer at Walmart on Atlanta Highway called the sheriff’s office on the evening of Oct. 10 after he caught an 18-year-old Winder man trying to smuggle several packs of “Magic: The Gathering” game cards out the store.

The cards, which the man had removed from the packaging before he got to the parking lot, were worth about $40.

THEFT: A member of The of Church of Pierce was getting the building on Pierce Road ready for Wednesday services around 6 p.m. on Oct. 12 when he noticed that someone had stripped the copper out of both of the church’s air-conditioning units. The thieves managed to dismantle both units without cutting the power to them.

Each of the units was worth about $2,000.

That same evening another deputy found two other air conditioners dismantled in a similar fashion at Covenant Blessing Church on Bethlehem Church Road. Those units were also worth about $2,000 a piece.

BURGLARY: A 70-year-old Statham man went to check on his pole barn on Greeson Road around 10 a.m. on Oct. 13 and found about $1,300 in tools, including two grinders, a band saw and a saw were missing.

A set of keys was stolen from another outbuilding on the property about six months ago.

THEFT: A 53-year-old Winder woman returned home from a vacation on Oct. 4 and found that her grown son had hosted a party at her Moon Bridge Road home while she was gone and that about $3,400 worth of her jewelry was missing.

The woman told a sheriff’s deputy that she hadn’t noticed that her two rings and bracelet were missing from the jewelry box on her dresser until Oct. 10 and waited until Oct. 13 to report it.

THEFT: A cashier at a convenience store on Carl Bethlehem Road in Bethlehem called the sheriff’s office after she caught one of the store’s regulars slipping a small scale, valued at about $20, into his back pocket and leaving the store without paying for it.

She wasn’t sure about what she had seen until she went back and reviewed the security tape. Once she was sure, she called the sheriff’s office and asked deputies to arrest the man.

THEFT: A deputy was dispatched to Barrow Industrial Parkway on the morning of Oct. 14 after a utility work crew returned to a construction site inside the industrial park and found that copper thieves had dug up and cut some of the electrical lines that they had recently installed.

Once they cut the lines, the thieves must have realized that there was only a thin layer of copper inside and left without stealing any.

The work crew’s foreman told the deputy that it would cost about $1,000 to repair the damage.

SHOTS FIRED: A Monroe Highway man called the sheriff’s office around 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 to report that his neighbor was shooting his shotgun in his back yard, and he did not appreciate it.

Bethlehem Elementary School is directly behind their neighborhood and the complaining neighbor was worried for the safety of the students.

The shooter explained that he had only been shooting at squirrels with bird shot. So far, he had fired three shots and killed three squirrels, the shooter told the deputy.

He told the deputy that he permission from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the school to shoot after 6 p.m. but he agreed to stop if it was scaring the neighbors.